Tax cheater 1) Tom Daschle - On November 19, 2008, the press reported that Daschle had accepted Obama's offer to be nominated for Health and Human Services Secretary. On January 30, 2009, it was reported that Daschle's friendship and business partnership with businessman Leo Hindery could cause problems for Daschle's Senate confirmation. Daschle has been a paid consultant and advisor to Hindery's InterMedia Partners since 2005, during which time he received from Hindery access to a limousine and chauffeur. Daschle reportedly did not declare this service on his annual tax forms as required by law. A spokeswoman for Daschle said that he "simply and probably naively" considered the use of the car and driver "a generous offer" from Hindery, "a longtime friend." Daschle told the Senate Finance Committee that in June 2008—just as he was letting the press know he would like to be HHS secretary in an Obama administration — that "something made him think that the car service might be taxable" and he began seeking to remedy the situation. Daschle reportedly also did not pay taxes on an additional $83,333 that he earned as a consultant to InterMedia Partners in 2007; this was discovered by Senator Daschle's accountant in December 2008. According to ABC News, Daschle also took tax deductions for $14,963 in donations that he made between 2005 and 2007 to charitable organizations that did not meet the requirements for being tax deductible. The former Senator paid the three years of owed taxes and interest—an amount totaling $140,167—in January 2009, but still reportedly owed "Medicare taxes equal to 2.9 percent" of the value of the car service he received, amounting to "thousands of dollars in additional unpaid taxes." On February 3, 2009, Daschle withdrew his nomination, saying that he did not wish to be a "distraction" to the Obama agenda.
Tax cheater 2) Timothy Geithner - During his confirmation, it was disclosed that Geithner had not paid $35,000 in Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes from 2001 through 2004 while working for the International Monetary Fund. The IMF, as an international agency, did not withhold payroll taxes, but instead reimbursed the usual employer responsibility of these taxes to employees. Geithner received the reimbursements and paid the amounts received to the government, but had not paid the remaining half which would normally have been withheld from his pay. The issue, as well as other errors relating to past deductions and expenses, was noted during a 2006 audit by the Internal Revenue Service. Geithner subsequently paid the additional taxes owed. In a statement to the Senate Finance Committee, Geithner called the tax issues "careless," "avoidable," and "unintentional" errors. Geithner testified that he used the software TurboTax to prepare his 2001 and 2002 returns, but that the tax errors were his own responsibility. On January 26, 2009, the U.S. Senate confirmed Geithner's appointment by a vote of 60–34. Geithner was sworn in as Treasury Secretary by Vice President Joe Biden and witnessed by President Barack Obama.
Tax cheater 3) Nancy Killefer - She was nominated for the Chief Performance Officer position of the Office of Management and Budget in the Obama administration in 2009. In 2005 the District of Columbia government had filed a more than $900 tax lien on her home for failure to pay state unemployment tax on household help. She resolved the matter five months after the lien was filed. Killefer withdrew her nomination as CPO on February 3, 2009.
Tax cheater 4) Ronald Kirk - His nomination to the position of Trade Representative ran into controversy when it was revealed that he owed $9,975 in back taxes. As compensation for speeches he gave from 2004 to the present, he had $37,750 of payments made directly to a scholarship fund at Austin College. Kirk should have included the $37,750 payments with his gross income and then claimed a charitable deduction for the same amount. Kirk also claimed deductions for three years of season tickets to the Dallas Mavericks as qualifying entertainment expenses. In order to claim a qualifying entertainment expense, the Internal Revenue Service requires written documentation of the time, place, business purpose, name, and business relationship of the person being entertained, records that Kirk did not keep for almost half of the basketball games. Kirk's deductions for tax and accounting fees were also too large. The U.S. Senate confirmed Kirk as United States Trade Representative on March 18, 2009, with a vote of 92 in favor and five opposed and he was sworn in the same day. Kirk was formally sworn in by Vice President Joe Biden on March 20, 2009. Kirk is the first person of African American descent to hold the position of United States Trade Representative.
Tax cheater 5) Kathleen Sebelius - In March 2009 she admitted to "unintentional errors" in tax returns and paid nearly $8,000 in back taxes. She took unduly large deductions in areas that included charitable contributions, the sale of a home, and business expenses. In answer to questions from the Senate Finance Committee during her April 2009 confirmation hearing, Sebelius stated she received $12,450 between 1994 and 2001 from physician George Tiller, one of only 3 late term abortion providers nationwide, who was later assassinated. The Associated Press, however, reported that from 2000 to 2002 Tiller gave at least $23,000 more to a political action committee Sebelius established to raise money for Democrats while she was serving as state insurance commissioner. Sebelius was confirmed by the United States Senate by a vote of 65–31 and sworn in on April 28, 2009 as Secretary of Health and Human Services. On September 13, 2012, the Office of Special Counsel charged Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius with violating the Hatch Act by making a political remark during an official government event. Sebelius's office reclassified the event from official to political and reimbursed the government's expenses.
Fast & Furious Scandal (or ATF gunwalking scandal) - The Arizona Field Office of the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) ran a series of sting operations between 2006 and 2011 in the Tucson and Phoenix area where the ATF "purposely allowed licensed firearms dealers to sell weapons to illegal straw buyers, hoping to track the guns to Mexican drug cartel leaders and arrest them." These operations were done under the umbrella of Project Gunrunner, a project intended to stem the flow of firearms into Mexico by interdicting straw purchasers and gun traffickers within the United States. The Jacob Chambers Case began in October 2009 and eventually became known in February 2010 as "Operation Fast and Furious" after agents discovered Chambers and the other suspects under investigation belonged to a car club. The stated goal of allowing these purchases was to continue to track the firearms as they were transferred to higher-level traffickers and key figures in Mexican cartels, with the expectation that this would lead to their arrests and the dismantling of the cartels. The tactic was questioned during the operations by a number of people, including ATF field agents and cooperating licensed gun dealers. During Operation Fast and Furious, the largest "gunwalking" probe, the ATF monitored the sale of about 2,000 firearms, of which only 710 were recovered as of February 2012. A number of straw purchasers have been arrested and indicted; however, as of October 2011, none of the targeted high-level cartel figures had been arrested.
Guns tracked by the ATF have been found at crime scenes on both sides of the Mexico–United States border, and the scene where United States Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed December 2010. The "gunwalking" operations became public in the aftermath of Terry's murder. Dissenting ATF agents came forward to Congress in response. According to Humberto Benítez Treviño, former Mexican Attorney General and chair of the justice committee in the Chamber of Deputies, related firearms have been found at numerous crime scenes in Mexico where at least 150 Mexican civilians were maimed or killed. Revelations of "gunwalking" led to controversy in both countries, and diplomatic relations were damaged. As a result of a dispute over the release of Justice Department documents related to the scandal, Attorney General Eric Holder became the first sitting member of the Cabinet of the United States to be held in contempt of Congress on June 28, 2012. Earlier that month, President Barack Obama had invoked executive privilege for the first time in his presidency over the same documents.
Green Energy loans - In April 2015 an audit by the Government Accountability Office found that taxpayers are on the hook for more than $2.2 billion in expected costs from the federal government’s energy loan guarantee programs. Nearly $1 billion in loans have already defaulted under the Energy Department program, which included the infamous Solyndra stimulus project and dozens of other green technology programs the Obama administration has approved, totaling nearly about $30 billion in taxpayer backing, the Government Accountability Office reported in its audit. The green program loan guarantees were created in a 2005 law and boosted by the 2009 stimulus. The first applications were approved in 2009, and through 2014 the Obama administration had issued some 38 loans and guarantees, covering 34 projects ranging from nuclear power plants to fuel-efficient vehicles to solar panels and wind-generation technology. The Energy Department said it considers the loan program a success. In addition to the risky loans, the program isn’t collecting enough money in fees to cover the costs of administering itself, GAO investigators said, calculating that less than half of the $312 million in administrative costs has been offset by fees.
The New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case - A political controversy in the United States concerning an incident that occurred during the 2008 election. The New Black Panther Party and two of its members, Minister King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson, were charged with voter intimidation for their conduct outside a polling station in Philadelphia. The Department of Justice later narrowed the charges against Minister King Shabazz and dismissed the charges against the New Black Panther Party and Jerry Jackson. The decision to dismiss the charges has led to accusations that the Department of Justice under the Obama administration is biased against white victims and unwilling to prosecute minorities for civil rights violations. These charges have been most notably made by J. Christian Adams, who in May 2010 resigned his post in the Department of Justice in protest over the Obama administration's perceived mishandling of the case, and by his former supervisor Christopher Coates. Then-AG Eric Holder rejected claims that his Justice Department considers the race of an alleged victim when deciding which cases to pursue. The case and its handling by the Department of Justice is currently being investigated by the United States Commission on Civil Rights. The Justice Department reportedly carried out its own internal investigation into the handling of the case.
The 2012 Benghazi attack - On the evening of September 11, 2012, Islamic militants attacked the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, killing U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith. Stevens was the first U.S. Ambassador killed in the line of duty since 1979. The attack has also been referred to as the Battle of Benghazi. Several hours later, a second assault targeted a different compound about one mile away, killing CIA contractors Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Doherty. Ten others were also injured in the attacks. The United States immediately increased security worldwide at diplomatic and military facilities and began investigating the Benghazi attack. In the aftermath of the attack, State Department officials were criticized for denying requests for additional security at the consulate prior to the attack. In her role as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton subsequently took responsibility for the security lapses. Initially, top U.S. officials and the media reported that the Benghazi attack was a spontaneous protest triggered by an anti-Muslim video, Innocence of Muslims. Subsequent investigations determined that there was no such protest and that the incident started as a premeditated attack that was quickly joined by rioters and looters enraged by the video. On September 13, progressive pundit Rachel Maddow, during her show on MSNBC, stated: "An organized attack. Anybody who tells you that what happened to our ambassador and our consulate in Libya was as a result of a protest over an offensive movie, you should ask them why they think that. That's the first version of events we heard. That does not seem to explain what happened that night or by the facts or the more facts we get." On September 25, in an address before the United Nations General Assembly President Obama stated, "The attacks on our civilians in Benghazi were attacks on America ... And there should be no doubt that we will be relentless in tracking down the killers and bringing them to justice." He referred to Innocence of Muslims as "a crude and disgusting video [that] sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world." He said, "I have made it clear that the United States government had nothing to do with this video, and I believe its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity." He further stated, "There is no video that justifies an attack on an Embassy." On September 28, it was reported that Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the producer of the Innocence of Muslims video, had been arrested in California and was being held without bail for alleged probation violations stemming from a 2010 bank fraud conviction.
IRS targeting controversy - In 2013, the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) revealed that it had selected political groups applying for tax-exempt status for intensive scrutiny based on their names or political themes. This led to wide condemnation of the agency and triggered several investigations, including a Federal Bureau of Investigation criminal probe ordered by United States Attorney General Eric Holder. Initial reports described the selections as nearly exclusively of conservative groups with terms such as "Tea Party" in their names. According to Republican lawmakers, liberal-leaning groups and the Occupy movement had also triggered additional scrutiny, but at a lower rate than conservative groups. The Republican majority on the House Oversight Committee issued a report, which concluded that although some liberal groups were selected for additional review, the scrutiny that these groups received did not amount to targeting when compared to the greater scrutiny received by conservative groups. The report was criticized by the committee's Democratic minority, which said that the report ignored evidence that the IRS used keywords to identify both liberal and conservative groups. In January 2014, the FBI told Fox News that its investigation had found no evidence so far warranting the filing of federal criminal charges in connection with the scandal, as it had not found any evidence of "enemy hunting", and that the investigation continued. On October 23, 2015, the Justice Department declared that no criminal charges would be filed.
Investigations of reporters - In 2013, the United States Department of Justice, under Attorney General Eric Holder, came under scrutiny from the media and some members of Congress for subpoenaing phone records from the Associated Press and naming Fox News reporter, James Rosen, a "criminal co-conspirator" under the Espionage Act of 1917 in order to gain access to his personal emails and phone records. On May 13, 2013, the Associated Press announced telephone records for 20 of their reporters during a two-month period in 2012 had been subpoenaed by the Justice Department. AP reported the Justice Department would not say why it sought the records, but news sources noted the US Attorney's office for the District of Columbia was conducting a criminal investigation into a May 7, 2012, AP story about a CIA operation which prevented the Yemeni terrorist Fahd al-Quso's plot to detonate an explosive device on a commercial flight. The DOJ did not direct subpoenas to the Associated Press; instead, the subpoenas were issued to their telephone providers, including Verizon Wireless. The AP claimed these acts were a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into news-gathering operations. Gary Pruitt, CEO of the Associated Press stated: "These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know." The US Attorney's office in Washington responded that federal investigators seek records from news outlets only after making "every reasonable effort to obtain information through alternative means." Verizon neither challenged the subpoena nor did it try to alert the journalists whose records were being requested. Debra Lewis, Verizon Wireless spokeswoman, said the company "complies with legal processes for requests for information by law enforcement."
Rod Blagojevich impeachment trial - Under the direction of US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, Governor Blagojevich was arrested at his home by federal agents and charged with corruption. The Justice Department complaint alleged that the governor conspired to commit several "pay to play" schemes, including attempting "to obtain personal gain ... through the corrupt use" of his authority to fill Barack Obama's vacated United States Senate seat (as stated, the vacancy was due to Obama's resignation, following election to presidency), claiming that in wiretapped recordings Blagojevich discussed his desire to get something in exchange for an appointment to the seat. After various outreach efforts, he appointed former state attorney general Roland Burris on New Year's Eve 2008. Burris was seated after some initial opposition in mid-January 2009. A trial was set for June 3, 2010 and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald spoke out on the charges, characterizing Blagojevich's actions as trying to auction the open seat off to "the highest bidder".
The Illinois House and Senate moved quickly thereafter to impeach the governor for abuse of power and corruption. On January 8, the Illinois House voted 114-1 (with three abstentions) to impeach Blagojevich. The charges brought by the House emphasized Blagojevich's alleged abuses of power and his alleged attempts to sell gubernatorial appointments and legislative authorizations and/or vetoes. One of the accusations was an alleged attempt to sell the appointment to the United States Senate seat vacated by the resignation of Barack Obama. Blagojevich was taped by the FBI saying "I've got this thing, and it's fucking golden. I'm just not giving it up for fucking nothing." He was removed from office and prohibited from ever holding public office in the state of Illinois again, by two separate and unanimous votes of 59–0 by the Illinois Senate on January 29, 2009. Blagojevich's lieutenant governor Patrick Quinn subsequently became governor of Illinois. Blagojevich's impeachment trial and removal from office did not have any effect or bearing on his federal indictment in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, as impeachment is a political, not a criminal, action.
Recess appointment controversy - National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning, was a 2014 United States Supreme Court case in which the Court unanimously ruled that the President of the United States cannot use his or her authority under the Recess Appointment Clause of the United States Constitution to appoint public officials unless the United States Senate is in recess and not able to transact Senate business. The Court held that the clause allows the president to make appointments during both intra-session and inter-session recesses but only if the recess is of sufficient length, and if the Senate is actually unavailable for deliberation. The Court also ruled that any vacancy in an office can be filled during the recess, regardless of when it arose. The case arose out of President Barack Obama's appointments of Sharon Block, Richard Griffin, and Terence Flynn to the National Labor Relations Board and Richard Cordray as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Justice Scalia wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment, joined by Chief Justice Roberts, Thomas, and Alito. While it agreed with the conclusion the Court reached, the concurrence chastises the opinion for ensuring "that recess appointments will remain a powerful weapon in the President's arsenal.... That is unfortunate, because the recess appointment power is an anachronism." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that the ruling underscored "the importance of the rules reform Senate Democrats enacted last November." Minority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed with the ruling: "The President made an unprecedented power grab by placing political allies at a powerful federal agency while the Senate was meeting regularly and without even bothering to wait for its advice and consent. A unanimous Supreme Court has rejected this brazen power-grab." Senator Orrin Hatch, a Republican and former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that the Court had "emphatically rejected President Obama’s brazen efforts to circumvent the Constitution, bypass the people’s elected representatives, and govern above the law [and] reaffirmed the Senate’s vital advice-and-consent role as a check on executive abuses."
Las Vegas spending scandal – In 2010 the General Services Administration organized a conference that cost $800,000. The revelation has prompted taxpayer indignation, embarrassed the administration and put a spotlight on wasteful spending by the GSA, which acts as a real estate agency for the federal government. Particular questions raised by Issa included why it took 11 months for the results of an inspector general's investigation to become public, and why a former congressional aide to President Barack Obama remained in his top job at GSA when he likely knew of the wrongdoing -- or should have. Committee members from both parties expressed outrag over the GSA's excessive spending, contracting violations and other abuses cited by the inspector general's report. On April 3, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Martha N. Johnson to serve as the GSA Administrator. After a 9-month delay, the United States Senate confirmed her nomination on February 4, 2010. On April 2, 2012, Johnson resigned in the wake of a management-deficiency report that detailed improper payments for a 2010 "Western Regions" training conference put on by the Public Buildings Service in Las Vegas. Videos surfaced of David Foley, a deputy commissioner of the Public Buildings Service, an arm of the GSA, appearing to mock congressional oversight. In it, he gave a talent show award to an employee whose video featured a rap about spending too much and joking about avoiding investigation. Details also emerged of an employee incentive program that violated limits on awards or gifts. In particular, conservative Republican members repeatedly listed the excesses -- more than $6,000 for commemorative coins for conference attendees, $75,000 for a team-building exercise to construct 24 bicycles then given to underprivileged children, the hiring of a mind reader as entertainment -- as well as bypassing a staff event planner to pay outsiders to prepare the conference and repeated "scouting visits" to Las Vegas by officials and family members.
Deepwater Horizon oil spill - On April 20, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, an explosion and the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, a sea-floor oil gusher flowed for 87 days, until it was capped on July 15, 2010. Eleven people went missing and were never found and it is considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry, an estimated 8% to 31% larger in volume than the previously largest, the Ixtoc I oil spill in 1979. The US Government estimated the total discharge at 4.9 million barrels (210 million gallons). After several failed efforts to contain the flow, the well was declared sealed on September 19, 2010. Reports in early 2012 indicated the well site was still leaking. The Interior Department exempted BP's calamitous Gulf of Mexico drilling operation from a detailed environmental impact analysis, according to government documents, after three reviews of the area concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely. The decision by the department's Minerals Management Service (MMS) to give BP's lease at Deepwater Horizon a "categorical exclusion" from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on April 6, 2009 -- and BP's lobbying efforts just 11 days before the explosion to expand those exemptions -- show that neither federal regulators nor the company anticipated an accident of the scale of the one unfolding in the gulf. In July 2015, BP agreed to pay $18.7 billion in fines, the largest corporate settlement in U.S. history.
As a response to the disaster, on April 30, 2010 President Barack Obama ordered the federal government to hold the issuing of new offshore drilling leases until a review determined whether more safety systems were needed and authorized teams to investigate 29 oil rigs in the Gulf in an effort to determine the cause of the disaster. On May 27 the United States Department of the Interior issued a press release stating that Salazar would issue a 6-month offshore drilling (below 500 feet of water) moratorium in the area. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar ordered immediate inspections of all deep-water operations in the Gulf of Mexico. Soon after, Hornbeck Offshore Services, a company with financial interests in deepwater drilling, filed suit in the Eastern District of Louisiana District Court seeking an injunction to ban enforcement. Judge Martin Feldman issued a decision for Hornbeck on Tuesday, June 22, 2010, granting a preliminary injunction, barring enforcement of the order. The White House appealed the injunction. On July 8 the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, based in New Orleans, ruled against a stay of injunction, saying the administration failed to show how it would be irreparably harmed if the stay was not granted. The court also said that the administration "made no showing that there is any likelihood that drilling activities will be resumed pending appeal." Salazar has indicated that the Department of the Interior will "issue a new order in the coming days that eliminates any doubt that a moratorium is needed, appropriate, and within our authorities." The ban was lifted in October 2010, but by February 2011 no one had received a permit to drill because those applying had to prove the ability to contain a spill. A group that included Exxon had developed a system with this capability. In July 2011 The Heritage Foundation's Robert Bluey reported at Scribe that deepwater drilling permits were down 71% from their historical monthly average of 5.9 permits per month, while shallow-water permits were off 34% from their historical 7.1 monthly average permits.
Van Jones - On March 10, 2009, it was announced that Jones would serve as Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Jones, while an ardent supporter of President Barack Obama, originally did not intend to work for the White House, later explaining "when they asked the question, I burst out laughing because at the time it seemed completely ludicrous that it would even be an option. I think what changed my mind was interacting with the administration during the transition process and during the whole process of getting the recovery package pulled together." His position with the Obama Administration was described by columnist Chadwick Matlin as "switchboard operator for Obama's grand vision of the American economy; connecting the phone lines between all the federal agencies invested in a green economy." Jones did not like the informal "czar" term sometimes applied to his job, and described his position as "the green-jobs handyman. I'm there to serve. I'm there to help as a leader in the field of green jobs, which is a new field. I'm happy to come and serve and be helpful, but there's no such thing as a green-jobs 'czar.'” After his White House appointment, Jones began receiving criticism from media sources such as WorldNetDaily and Fox News commentator Glenn Beck, who featured Jones on fourteen episodes of his show. They criticized Jones for his past political activities, including his involvement with STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement) and his support for Mumia Abu-Jamal, a prisoner sentenced to death for murdering a police officer in a highly controversial trial. In July 2009 Color of Change, an organization that Jones founded in 2005 and left in 2007, launched a campaign urging advertisers on Beck's Fox News show to pull their ads, in response to comments by Beck stating President Obama has a "deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture." In September 2009, a video on YouTube was circulated of a February 2009 lecture at the Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative at which Jones used strong language to refer to Congressional Republican lawmakers, and himself, when conveying that Democrats need to step up the fight. Jones was asked how Republicans could manage to pass measures through the Senate without a supermajority, yet Democrats, with 58 votes of their own, were being blocked by Republicans. Jones explained, "Well, the answer to that is, they're assholes. As a technical, political kind of term. And Barack Obama is not an asshole. Now, I will say this: I can be an asshole, and some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama, are going to have to start getting a little bit uppity." Jones apologized, "for the offensive words I chose to use during that speech. They do not reflect the views of this administration, which has made every effort to work in a bipartisan fashion, and they do not reflect the experience I have had since I joined the administration."
After what Jones described as a "vicious smear campaign" by "opponents of reform [of health care and clean energy]", he resigned on September 5, 2009, saying that he could not "in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future". In February 2010, Jones became a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he leads their Green Opportunity Initiative "to develop a clearly articulated agenda for expanding investment, innovation, and opportunity through clean energy and environmental restoration".
Jonathan Gruber - In January 2010, after news emerged that Gruber was under a $297,000 contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, while at the same time promoting the Obama administration's health care reform policies, some commentators suggested a conflict of interest. In July 2014, two separate recordings of Gruber, both from January 2012, surfaced in which he seemed to contradict the administration's position on subsidies. In one, Gruber states, in response to an audience question, that "if you’re a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits", while in the other he says, "if your governor doesn't set up an exchange, you're losing hundreds of millions of dollars of tax credits to be delivered to your citizens". When these recordings emerged, Gruber called these statements mistaken, describing them as "just a speak-o—you know, like a typo". In November 2014, a series of videos emerged of Gruber speaking about the ACA at different events, from 2010 to 2013, in ways that proved to be controversial. Many of the videos show him talking about ways in which he felt the ACA was misleadingly crafted or marketed in order to get the bill passed, while in some of the videos he specifically refers to American voters as ill-informed or "stupid". In the first, most widely-publicized video taken at a panel discussion about the ACA at the University of Pennsylvania in October 2013, Gruber said the bill was deliberately written "in a tortured way" to disguise the fact that it creates a system by which "healthy people pay in and sick people get money". He said this obfuscation was needed due to "the stupidity of the American voter" in ensuring the bill's passage. Gruber said the bill's inherent "lack of transparency is a huge political advantage" in selling it. In two subsequent videos, Gruber was shown talking about the decision (which he attributed to John Kerry) to have the bill tax insurance companies instead of patients (the so-called "Cadillac tax"), which he called fundamentally the same thing economically but more palatable politically. In one video, he stated that "the American people are too stupid to understand the difference" between the two approaches, while in the other he said that the switch worked due to "the lack of economic understanding of the American voter". In another video, taken in 2010, Gruber expressed doubts that the ACA would significantly reduce health care costs, though he noted that lowering costs played a major part in the way the bill was promoted. In another video, taken in 2011, Gruber again talks about manipulation behind the "Cadillac tax", this time also stating that the tax is designed so that, though it begins by affecting only 8% of insurance plans, it will "over the next 20 years" come to apply to nearly all employer-provided health plans. Journalist Jake Tapper stated that Gruber's description of the Cadillac tax directly contradicted a promise that Obama had made before the bill was passed.
Anwar al-Awlaki - On September 30, 2011, in northern Yemen's al-Jawf province, two Predator drones based at a secret CIA base in Saudi Arabia fired Hellfire missiles at a vehicle containing al-Awlaki and three other suspected al-Qaeda members. According to US sources, the strike was carried out by Joint Special Operations Command, under the direction of the CIA. A witness said the group had stopped to eat breakfast while traveling to Ma'rib Governorate. The occupants of the vehicle spotted the drone and attempted to flee in the vehicle. Yemen's Defense Ministry announced that al-Awlaki had been killed. Also killed was Samir Khan, an American born in Saudi Arabia, thought to be behind al-Qaeda's English-language web magazine Inspire. Journalist and author Glenn Greenwald argued on Salon.com that killing al-Awlaki violated his First Amendment right of free speech and that doing so outside of a criminal proceeding violated the Constitution's due process clause, specifically citing the 1969 Supreme Court decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio that "the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force." On April 21, 2014 the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal ruled that the Obama administration must release documents justifying its drone killings of foreigners and Americans, including Anwar al-Awlaki. In June 2014, the United States Department of Justice disclosed a 2010 memorandum written by the acting head of the department, David Barron. The memo stated that Anwar al-Awlaki was a significant threat with an infeasible probability of capture. Barron therefore justified the killing as legal, as "the Constitution would not require the government to provide further process". The New York Times Editorial Board dismissed the memo's rationale for al-Awlaki's killing, saying it "provides little confidence that the lethal action was taken with real care", instead describing it as "a slapdash pastiche of legal theories — some based on obscure interpretations of British and Israeli law — that was clearly tailored to the desired result." A lawyer for the ACLU described the memo as "disturbing" and "ultimately an argument that the president can order targeted killings of Americans without ever having to account to anyone outside the executive branch."
Veterans Health Administration scandal - Critics charged that patients at the VHA hospitals had not met the target of getting an appointment within 14 days. In some hospitals, the staff falsified appointment records to appear to meet the 14-day target. Some patients died while they were on the waiting list; reports differ about whether they died because of the delay. Many VHA managers were fired as a result. Defenders agreed that it was unacceptable to falsify data, but the 14-day target was unrealistic in understaffed facilities like Phoenix, and most private insurers didn't meet a 14-day target either. By most measures, the VHA system provides "excellent care at low cost," wrote Paul Krugman, who believes that the attack on the VHA system are motivated by conservatives who want to discredit a government program that works well. Conservative legislators have proposed privatizing the VHA, and legislative reforms will make it easier for veterans to go to private doctors. CNN reported on April 30, 2014 that at least 40 United States Armed Forces veterans died while waiting for care at the Phoenix, Arizona, Veterans Health Administration facilities. By June 5, 2014, Veterans Affairs internal investigations had identified 35 veterans who had died while waiting for care in the Phoenix VHA system. An investigation of delays in treatment throughout the Veterans Health Administration system is being conducted by the Veterans Affairs Office of the Inspector General, and the House has passed legislation to fund a $1 million criminal investigation by the Justice Department. On May 16, 2014, the Veterans Health Administration's top health official, Dr. Robert Petzel, retired early at the request of Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki. On May 30, 2014, Secretary Shinseki resigned from office amid the fallout from the controversy. As of early June 2014, several other VA medical centers around the nation have been identified with the same problems as the Phoenix facility, and the investigations by the VA Inspector General, the Congress and others are widening. An internal VA audit released June 9, 2014 found that more than 120,000 veterans were left waiting or never got care and that schedulers were pressured to use unofficial lists or engage in inappropriate practices to make waiting times appear more favorable. On June 11, 2014, the Federal Bureau of Investigation opened a criminal investigation of the VA. President Barack Obama ordered a White House investigation. On June 27, 2014, Obama's Deputy Chief of Staff, Rob Nabors, reported "significant and chronic system failures" and a "corrosive culture" inside the Veterans Health Administration. In August 2014, Obama signed Congressional legislation regarding funding and reform of the Veterans Health Administration.
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